A cocktail of boredom and waiting creates the desire to do something quicker. Offically, Hardy Heron[0] (the next Ubuntu release) doesn’t come out till the 24th. But thanks to it being free software, the beta came out a few weeks before. Time to apt-get dist-upgrade!
First up is the art. This release is a looker. Most of the work you’ll see is from the GNOME team, but Ubuntu looks great. Its default wallpapers are nice. The new Clearlook them makes me happy. It looks more professional than the 2.20 them did.
Cheese seems like a fun little app, but as I don’t have a webcam, Its no use to me. F-Spot and GIMP haven’t really changed, but it now comes with Transmission, one of the best Bit Torrent clients on OS X is now part of GNOME.
I like Firefox 3. I like it a lot. It kicks Epiphany’s ass. Its fast, and is designed to blend in with whatever OS its running on. The tabs move when a new one is added, and doesn’t crash as often as Firefox 2 did. Fantastic!
At last, my Wacom Bamboo tablet works! An update to the wacom drivers, which I could have applied myself (but failed each time), is included. Updates to the base system is included of course. GCC 4.2, latest Python, Perl, ect.
So overall, Hardy looks like a pretty good release of a pretty good project. It’s officially released on April 24th, so make sure you upgrade soon. Don’t forget to back up your data though!
Emoticon Review: 
[0] Yes, I’m fully aware the name is not the greatest, and leaves it open to a ton of nob gags, but I resisted the big. bulging, temptation. Oh bugger…
